Alastair Cook: I was wasted while England failed at Cricket World Cup

Alastair Cook has accused England of wasting his sensational Ashes form by not selecting him for the World Cup.

Alastair Cook lines up at the Essex photocall (Getty)

The left-hander scored 766 runs and averaged 127 as he helped inspire England to their first Test- series win in Australia for 24 years.

But despite making the initial 30-man World Cup squad, he was overlooked for the tournament on the Indian sub-continent.

The lack of opening options undermined England’s chaotic campaign, which ended in a dismal ten-wicket quarter-final defeat by Sri Lanka after they struggled through their group.

Kevin Pietersen , who returned home early with a hernia, Matt Prior and Ian Bell were all used as partners for captain Andrew Strauss while Cook was left at home doing pre-season work with Essex.

And the 26-year-old admitted: ‘It was frustrating because I was in as good form as I’ve ever been and, as much as it was nice to be back home, for me personally I felt wasted because form like that doesn’t come very often.

‘But the selectors went a different way and you’ve got to live with that.’

With uncertainty over the future of Strauss as one-day captain, Cook has been linked with the role he filled when his opening partner was rested for last year’s tour of Bangladesh.

But he cited the hectic winter schedule, rather than the captaincy, for the side’s disappointing World Cup.

He said: ‘For starters, you can’t have a five-month tour with a World Cup at the end of it, especially with an Ashes series where it takes so much out of you. It’s madness.

‘The guys looked very tired. Speaking to a couple of them, they were tired so they tried to hide it but unfortunately they couldn’t hit the standards they’d have liked.’

Cook kept up his high standards from the Ashes with a century for Essex in a warm-up game against Cambridge University this week.

He will be available for four County Championship games, starting against Kent on Friday, before linking up with England in May for Test series against Sri Lanka and world No.1’s India.

He added: ‘It’s a really important summer again for English cricket and part of the reason is we want to be the No.1 ranked side in the world and to do that we have to beat two high-ranked sides this summer.’